Education, From The Capitol To The Classroom

Stories about students: How does education policy affect the way students learn and grow? Can schools meet their needs as they balance ramped-up testing with personal changes and busy schedules? And are students who need help getting it?

Stories about educators: How are those responsible for implementing education policy in schools − from classroom teachers, to district administrators, to school board members − affected by changes at the top? And how well do they meet their challenge of reaching students with varying abilities and needs?

Stories about school assessment: With an increased push for 'accountability' in schools, what can test scores tell us about teacher effectiveness and student learning − and what can't they tell us? What does the data say about how schools at all levels are performing?

Stories about government influence: Who are the people and groups most instrumental in crafting education policy? What are their priorities and agendas? And how do they work together when they disagree?

Stories about money: How do local, state, and federal governments pay to support the education policies they craft? How do direct costs of going to school − from textbooks to tuition − hit a parent or student's bottom line? And how do changing budgets and funding formulas affect learning and teaching?

A group of 12 plaintiffs, including Glenda Ritz, the newly elected state superintendent of public instruction, claim the vouchers violate three sections of the Indiana Constitution and say the program must be canceled.

Specifically, they argue state support of selective private schools whose tuition charge exceeds the voucher’s value runs afoul of the the Constitution’s requirement that Indiana operate a “uniform system of common schools, wherein tuition shall be without charge, and equally open to all.”

In addition, the challengers say using tax dollars to pay tuition at religious schools is barred by the Constitution’s prohibition against compelling a person to “support any place of worship … against his consent,” and its ban on using state funds “for the benefit of any religious or theological institution.”

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In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld an Ohio voucher law on the grounds the state wasn’t directly funding religious schools, but giving voucher money to parents who chose to spend it at private institutions. But Superintendent-elect Ritz and other plaintiffs challenging Indiana’s law argue that vouchers siphon resources away from public schools.

Indiana’s program is considered one of the most expansive in the country — though there were caps of 7,500 and 15,000 the first two years, next year there’s no limit to the number of families that can apply for vouchers. School choice advocates have praised Indiana’s program for reaching into the middle income levels: A family of four making up to $62,000 per year could get a partial tuition scholarship from the state to attend a private school.

That’s led to some concern that parents who would otherwise pay to send their kids to private school will instead apply for tuition credits from the state. In August, we wrote about a large, Catholic family who left St. Charles School in Bloomington last year because they couldn’t afford to pay tuition for five kids. They were able to return for the 2012-13 because they had spent a year in public school, a condition of the voucher program.

We’ll have more from Indiana Public Broadcasting’s Brandon Smith later Monday.

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Comments

http://www.facebook.com/horace.mann.5 Horace Mann

This article by John Kuhn, a superintendent in Texas, demonstrates how the charter school / voucher plan is simply a ruse.

Meanwhile, high-performing charter schools are portrayed as having cracked the code when it comes to educating poor inner city students. In reality, the quiet secret to their trumpeted success is simply a strategic divorce of cultures. Via lottery-purified enrollment, high-hurdled parent involvement, and hair-trigger expulsions, the highest of the high-performers embrace select children from the neighborhood while flatly rejecting the broad sweep of the neighborhood’s culture, preferring to substitute their own pre-manufactured culture-like products. Culture goes to neighborhood schools; it is there that we see the health or frailties our nation’s policies have wrought in our neediest zip codes. Tragically, creatively-selective charter schools portend national blindness to the suffering our policies foster.